Davina McCall feared for her life after collapsing in Sport Relief swim horror

The ex-Big Brother host yesterday recalled the moment she was dragged struggling for breath from the icy water after the first leg of her Sport Relief challenge.

She was so convinced she would die that she even prayed to her late sister to pull her through the 1.5-mile swim across Windermere.

Davina admitted: “I was very frightened.

“I was just very, very tired and I had nothing.

“I had perfected this amazing front crawl in three months. I was really good at it and then I got in the cold water and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I couldn’t breathe, so I couldn’t put my head in the water to turn it up to breathe.”

“I was really good at it and then I got in the cold water and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I couldn’t breathe, so I couldn’t put my head in the water to turn it up to breathe”

Davina McCall

“And I literally ended up doggy-paddling across Windermere which took a lot longer than we all thought.”

Davina told BBC Breakfast yesterday she survived by hanging on to the support team’s kayak and thinking of her half-sister Caroline Baday, who died from cancer in 2012. She said: “I imagined my sister holding me and pulling me through it. I got so desperate I looked up to God. If there was anyone up there I needed their help.”

Medics feared Davina had hypothermia as she appeared lifeless with her head lolling when they pulled her from the Cumbrian lake. She added: “I keep saying to myself it wouldn’t raise any money if it wasn’t a challenge.

“But by God it’s a challenge.”

But the 46-year-old is determined to finish her 500-mile cycle-swim-run marathon from Edinburgh to London.

Yesterday she cycled from Accrington, Lancs, to Glossop, Derbys, before joining the Pennine Way to run a section to Edale for the fundraiser, titled BT Sport Relief Challenge: Davina – Beyond Breaking Point.

“I’ve got to get to my children by Friday or I’m going to expire, so that’s my focus,” she said.

“It’s not even like they’re trying to make me do it, I’ve just got to get to the kids.”